Tag: cooking

Pensées du jour

Published on by Grace10 Comments

I’m a bit tired of fighting with frying pans. You know that brand of cookware I mentioned, Hexclad, well, dear reader I bought them.  On the website and on Amazon 3 saute pans with lids are $399. But  while reading (even more) reviews I discovered that Costco also sells them. Popping over to Costco’s website I discovered they had – On Sale – a 7 piece set for $349. Now who could resist that, not me obviously.

I don’t buy shoes, purses, clothes, jewelry, we don’t eat out, we don’t drink – hell, a little indulgence to make an onerous task easier I can justify that.

While hardly a pollyanna, and far from being one of those positivity people, I often can see the upside to the downside.  My husband’s recent lengthy hospital stay, with me at the hospital 10 to 14 hours a day, certainly upset our self-defined schedules. Or rather my husband’s schedules that I had to follow because even tho I was always the one doing the work he had set the schedule.

Such as – laundry on Monday and Friday morning. Several times I did the laundry in the afternoon and he got all twitchy about it. He had no hand in doing the laundry why would be care when it gets done? Yet – he did care. It bothered him when I changed the schedule. Same goes for vacuuming, grocery shopping, changing bed linens, washing dishes – the list goes on. He never did any of these things – why did he care so much when they got done? I asked him, he said he doesn’t know, it just does.

Those schedules are all trashed now. Being at the hospital for so many hours, things got done when I had ‘early’ days; some things didn’t get done for weeks; dishes stayed in the sink overnight – I just didn’t have the energy or the time for arbitrary schedules.

Since he’s been home – I still don’t have the energy and the schedules have been tossed.

Meds and exercises on schedule? Of course. Laundry? No.  Everything gets done but – when it needs to be done; when I feel like it. And my own crazy obsessive habits? Some of them have bitten the dust too. I would never leave dishes in the sink or the drainboard overnight – not even a spoon. Now? Who cares. Not me…

What a wonderful upside to a dreadful downside!

 

For Melissa – Recipe for spaghetti with garlic and oil.

Published on by Grace7 Comments

Also known as spaghetti aglio e olio.  Personally I use linguini  but you can also use spaghettini but NEVER angel hair.  You want a thin macaroni, spaghetti is really too thick and angel hair, in my opinion is gross.

The way I do it is the way I like it – there are variations to-taste.

Put up the pot to boil. Take a small (6 inch) frying pan, add olive oil and garlic. Use low heat (or low flame) to just get the garlic fragrant. Turn off the heat.

When the macaroni is cooked drain it but not too much, you want it fairly wet. Put the macaroni back in the pot, add the garlic/olive oil. Keep a low heat under the pot while you mix it all together (coating the macaroni), add fresh ground black pepper.

Dump onto a plate add the grated cheese of your choice – Eccolo!

Variations to taste (and answers to questions you might have):

~ I always add a little bit of lemon juice to the olive oil/garlic pan. It just seems to brighten it up.

~ Some folks add hot red pepper flakes – you can add them to the olive oil pan or to the pot after the pasta has been coated.  Your choice – to your taste or not at all.

~ The garlic – you can slice it VERY thinly, you can mince it, you can use a garlic press – whatever you like.

~ How much garlic? Hey, you’re eating it, please yourself. While I have an apron that says “There is no such thing as too much garlic” – that’s not true but you get to decide that.

~ How much olive oil?  Ah, – who knows – enough to nicely coat however much macaroni you are cooking.  You can always add more olive oil after you’ve mixed everything together if it looks to dry or you just want more olive oil.

~ Grated cheese – I like Romano – specifically Locatelli Romano which is not always easy to get and it’s way expensive so plain Romano has to do. You can use Parmesan if that’s how you roll.

~ Also – depending on which, or how many, greasy pans you want to wash – You can use a bigger frying pan to do the garlic and oil and then put the pasta into that pan to coat the macaroni. I do the small frying pan into the macaroni pot.  I’ll use a spoon to get out all the garlic bits and olive oil.

I use this as a side dish but there is nothing to stop you from making it a main dish.

See – easy peasy.